Three hundred. I'd known it were coming since Holme Styes a fortnight before, and I'll be honest about summat the notebook doesn't say: I'd wondered whether the three hundredth would turn out to be a grand one, a moor-top boot with a story to it, and part of me had half planned a walk that might deserve it. In the end it were a ginnel off Knowl Road in Golcar on an ordinary Saturday, and transcribing it a year later I've come round to thinking that's the better result. A register that saves its round numbers for scenery has got its priorities wrong. The shoes decide, not me.
Right shoe, black, a formal lace-up with the polish still on the toe. Up against the ginnel wall. Laces present, untied. Good condition, recent — days rather than weeks, I'd say, going by the polish surviving a Golcar July. A smart shoe in a ginnel is always worth care, so care is what it got.
I noted the number, then checked it against the ledger twice — not because I doubted it, but because a milestone entered wrong is a milestone spoiled, and you only get to write '300' once. Both checks agreed. Then I had a Penguin, stood up in the ginnel, which is not the setting the occasion might have wanted but were the setting the occasion got.
Fine day, light wind. A woman came past with a dog and the dog showed an interest in the shoe, and she called it off before I had to say owt, which I appreciated and told her so. She didn't ask what I were doing, which on reflection I also appreciated. Sixteen years from a field gateway near Marsden to a ginnel in Golcar, three hundred shoes, none of them moved, none of them explained. I don't go in for summing up, but the notebook allows itself one line and I'll carry it over as written: 'Three hundred. Steady on.'
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.